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Lugubrum - Albino de Congo

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 May 29 2008 at 02:57:41 AM



Rumbles in the jungle.

Either the second coming of the Fab-Four or Velvet Cacoon’s terrible twosome, The Belgium-born, self-professed “brown metal” outfit, Lugubrum are back with their latest album, Albino de Congo, a work reportedly recorded on location in the former Belgium colony of Kinshasa, in what is now The Democratic Republic of Congo. While the jury is still out on whether or not such a trip actually took place, Black Metal perception remains nine tenths of the law.

Whereas the Beatles sought retreat in the meditative quarters of Britain’s ex-colonial jewel, Lugubrum’s aims appear more medicinal rather than transcendental. And that means still a little bit gross. The album abounds in references to botanical cures for gastric pains and lapsed rectums - the province of pygmy medicine men set to the tune of tranquil lays, stoning thud of the bass guitar and raw teeth-scraping melodies on the six-string. New country, new sound, same color. All brought to bare, paradoxically, in the cleanest sound Lugubrum has ever had on record.

Recording with a slightly revamped lineup rounded out by new bassist Noctiz (who also produced Albino de Congo) the band naturally trades off on some ethnic flair for novelty’s sake – using pre-recorded excerpts of ecstatic tribal demos, thumb pianos, ambient drifts evoking all of Conrad and papa Coppola swift boating through an equatorial Acheron, a more relaxed downriver exhibition on acoustic guitar that melts into post-coital saxophones heaving low into the dark, as well as some spoken word pieces - but at the same time extends their sound beyond both the group’s origins and present surroundings.

The record sweats style, but even Lugubrum’s vaunted quirkiness plays as integral, stirring the muddy waters just enough to bring out variations of Black and even Thrash Metal (“Kabondodobondo Muborobondo”) to ground the humor with odious purpose, further mutilating genre in psychedelic scribblings and woozy Jazz technique plugged in as perfectly sequential fornications on a theme.

You can sense the heat together with the rhythm set suffocating inside closed quarters, producing a Potpourri of pit sweat and open beer containers. The tonic quaffed and passed down the line: Midgaar’s playing up and around the guitar like Joe Morris plucking with Iommi’s nubbin; Scooby Doom’s swollen finger tips hammering notes in the stale haze of insect-static hovering in the air (“Bwikalabalume”); leads like saws crying, or vice versa, while Noctiz’s five on four bounces from wall-to-wall, bumpin n’ punkin while stringed to muted drumbeats colliding in a similar blurping palaver. Stampeding rhythms, sullen can-kicking crunch, donning shades while they fuck (“Kurlerha Omugongo”) and whatever it is causing vocalist Barditus to burp his imported bog gravy into the river banks while his cohorts keep tooting away, perhaps thousands of miles from home, on a busted shitter.

Don’t rule out an epiphany just yet.

[Todd DePalma]

Lugubrum
Albino de Congo
2008
Old Grey Hair
http://www.oldgreyhair.com
type: reviews    keywords: black metal,   

Comments (1)

  • 15 comments
    anon
    5:55 AM on Jun 04, 2008 // reply »
    So far my favorite black metal album of 2008 - probably will contest with Saviours and Prostitute Disfigurement for best metal album of the year. Nice review.
 

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